“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.”Matthew 5:6

Winston Pannell - 3/2012

WHY MEN GO TO HEAVEN OR HELL

The scriptures tell us that “the blood of Jesus cleanseth us from all sin.” (1 Jn. 1:7) Also, we are told that His name is called “Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.” (Matt. 1:21) Among their many sins are the sins of unbelief and their consequent rejection of Christ all the days of their lives prior to their conversion. So what determined their salvation and made it sure? Was it their reception of Christ? John tells us that the difference between those who reject Christ and those who receive Him lies in a distinction made by God Himself! No one in their natural state ever receives Christ. Men neither “do” any thing to be lost or anything to be saved! We became sinners in Adam by virtue of something he did. “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned;” (Rom. 5:12) Many on earth will never hear of Christ so as to be able to reject Him, yet they will perish. Why, because they are sinners! John writes, “He came unto his own and his own received him not...” But then he says, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to becomes the sons of God.” Why did these receive Christ and many others continue to reject Him? John says that it is because these who received Him “were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (Jn. 1:11-13) Why were these born of God? Because of the efficacy of the blood of Christ shed for them! They are saved because God “accepted” them “in the Beloved.” Christ is that glorious God-Man Person whose blood shed was a particular price paid to redeem a particular people! God says, “for the transgression of my people was he stricken.” (Isa. 53:8) That is the design of Christ's atonement and the extent of it since whatever God desires to do that's what He does. (Job 23:13) And that is the message of the Gospel. God, in the tri-unity of His sacred Persons, is the cause of salvation and the gospel of particular redemption in Christ goes up to His throne as a sweet fragrance “in those that are being saved and in those that perish.” (2 Cor. 2:14-16) Many will die in their sins not because of what they do or don't do but because of what they are. Salvation is of the Lord! As Bro. Barnard once preached, “Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the LORD hath rejected them.” (Jeremiah 6:30)